Aluminum alloys are widely used in various industries for rolling, aluminum sashes, regeneration, casting and die casting. Aluminum smelting furnaces usually used are limited solely to the same open hearth type as used for smelting steel materials.
When feeding the material to such furnaces, the lid of the furnace is opened while interrupting heating, permitting heat to dissipate to temporarily cool the furnace. Since the feed of the material and heating are alternately repeated to melt the material, the operation requires a prolonged period of time and necessitates a large-scale device for the disposal of the soot and smoke resulting from charging of the material. Additionally the slag floating on the molten metal during the operation must be removed by a burdonsome procedure with a scraper rod having a length approximately equal to the overall length of the furnace. It is therefore desired to overcome these problems.